Salem Chapel

Vincent’s social entanglements complicate his ministry in predictable ways. What could not be predicted, however, are the crises into which his wider family is plunged as their lives intertwine with those of strangers.

This second Chronicle of Carlingford brings readers into a realm of society which is seldom glimpsed in Victorian fiction: the lives of shopkeepers, dissenting thought and culture, the distinctive piety and “tea meetings” of the Chapel—all of which finds its closest parallels in the later fiction of Mark Rutherford. While Salem Chapel may not yet be the artistic high point of the series, still, as one critic puts it, with it “Mrs. Oliphant gave the surest sign of genius.”

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